Writer Jack O'Brien treks just outside the Zirkel Wildness' western boundary, found for the promise of snow. Photo courtesy of Jack O'Brien.

I had long gazed high on the horizon  – at the Gores, the Sawatch, the Front Range, often from the backseat of my parent’s car – and wondered what turns could be had there. But it wasn’t until later that I came into my own, with a group of like-minded friends, and began serious, if occasional, forays into the backcountry.

The backpack was heavy enough to induce immediate pain upon being shouldered. But no matter how heavily the load sat – its skis, boots and ample water adding to a sum that bordered on the absurd – the prospect of adventure out of the ordinary kept my feet moving, one in front of the other.

On this day in mid-June, my friend Pete Morelli and I had departed from the muddy and deserted Slavonia trailhead, gateway to the enchanting Zirkel Wilderness, bound for the promise of snow on the high peaks of the Park Range. Many a mile would be had on dry trail as we ascended switchbacks and creek crossings toward Mica Basin – a jagged glacial cirque framing an idyllic tarn that goes by the same name. There, we hoped to find snow enough to ski one of the area’s most iconic peaks, Big Agnes.

But we were too late that go-around. As we came into the basin, entering at a rugged, almost fantastical keyhole only a few yards wide, the sweeping south face of the crumbling, stately peak showed it had long since shed its last snow. But having come that far we decided to make the most of our morning in the Zirkels.

We ascended a soft shoulder near the end of the basin that still seemed to hold snow – and good turns. But as we neared the edge of the ridge, we were greeted with a surprise. Over the horizon came into focus a high peak that was before hidden from view, its north face still choked with snow.

Its corniced summit looked steep, the remaining run sweeping around the mountain into parts unknown. We were immediately smitten. And while it was too late that day to make a go at the peak, we’d surely be back.

Nestled in the Northwestern part of the state, its rugged, Continental Divide marking the boundary between the quiet basins of the Elk and North Platte rivers, the Zirkels inhabit one of the more far-flung regions of Colorado. Their geographical location detracts travelers from journeying to the enticing range until the summer months when many a car finds its way to the area’s access points. Most use the dusty and beautiful Seedhouse Road to enter the wilderness area from the Slavonia trailhead and its small parking area, some twenty miles north as the crow flies from downtown Steamboat Springs.

Peaking in the late summer months when the snows have reached their ebb, hikers and backpackers enjoy the halcyon Alpine lakes and majestic peaks of the area in numbers before the roads again close as winter returns, leaving the wilderness once more quiet.

But while the area receives ample snow on its majestic 12,000-foot peaks, it remains something of a quiet backwater to the backcountry skier, who typically frequents more accessible ranges like the Gore, the Tenmile and the Sawatch. Still, a devoted cadre of local skiers takes to the Zirkels in winter, spring and summer.

During the winter months, taking Seedhouse Road to its winter closure, snowmobiles are employed to access the are aadjacent to the wilderness boundary, including Little Agnes peak, whose summit straddles that border.

Local Kevin Olsen has long skied the Zirkels, and his initial response to helping with this piece was indicative of both the area’s still unrevealed spoils and the desire to keep them that way. “I can help out. I can’t give away all the secrets, though!” he texted me.

Utilizing both human and machine power, Kevin notes the area’s variety of approaches. “There’s tons of variety between snowmobile access, snowmobile-to-tour or just straight hiking. Lots of beautiful and varied terrain including some very steep options paired with the Steamboat champagne,” he says.

Regardless of the quality of its terrain and snow, the area remains little known to backcountry skiers, Kevin notes. “A lot of the Zirkels are snowmobile accessed, which cuts down on the traffic. You need to know where you are going coupled with the snowmobile skills to get there. With only a few groomed roads up there it’s not very obvious where to go. Good backcountry safety skills and route finding are a must,” he says.

Just outside of the wilderness boundary, machines can be used to access the area while snow remains abundant. But as the season progresses, and much of it melts away, the snowmobile must be eschewed for the oldest form of travel. Skiers of the Zirkels thus take to foot to find secluded lines that remain choked with snow well into summer.

For years, long-time local Jeff Peterka accessed the Zirkels for summer turns, braving swarming mosquitos, raging creek crossings and heavy packs to find worthy spoils.

Recounting his initial experiences with skiing the Zirkels in the summer decades ago, Jeff illuminates backcountry skiing’s certain penchant – especially in the summer – for misadventure. “My first trip was the third weekend of June,” he remembers of a sojourn to Gilpin Lake. “I had never been backpacking. Didn’t have a frame pack. We duct-taped my gear to my daypack that fell apart by the end of the weekend,” he recalls.

Overcoming fatigue and a fast-approaching thunderstorm whose booms echoed throughout the majestic basin and chased the group into their one tent, Jeff and his skiing partners haphazardly ate dinner, crashed to sleep and awoke the next morning.

“We stashed the packs at the exit route, filled our bottles at a spring gushing out of some huge rocks, and started up the face of Zirkel,” Jeff recounts. “The skiing was awesome ... The snow had dirt and red mold on top. So our tracks were very visible. A friend told me in August our tracks were still there.”

Returning to camp, the trio sat on a log and were greeted with a loaded pipe and working lighter that must have been left months prior, perhaps by a hiker run off by a storm the previous fall.

Now in his eighth decade, Jeff reflects on those trips, ruminating on why someone might take to a rugged, difficult form of skiing far from any lift.

“Why did I make those trips? Well, at that age I did it because it was there to do. I had no idea what I was in for. And while I was doing it, I had no awareness of how epic it was. A few years later, I wondered if I would ever do it again. Never did. Which makes it even better.”

“To really begin to appreciate the size and beauty I would have to sit still for a long time in nature. We were moving so fast on those trips. I missed a lot of the roses,” he says.

Skiing the Zirkels – especially in the spring and summer – ushers one toward a backcountry method that rewards the intrepid not overly concerned with convenience. But the prize is a quiet, earned experience far from the standard route.It speaks not only to a unique area that requires a certain approach to be enjoyed on skis, but a mosaic of perspectives that the skier can take to, brought to life on snow and in the journey to find it.

On another sojourn to the area, we forgo the standard Slavonia trailhead for a less frequented but more direct path to the snowfield we had spied from the edge of Mica Basin. Through a barren, snowless landscape of ghostly snags we negotiate marsh and timber to find our way to the ridge that connects to the summit. Ever higher as we ascend, the Elk River Valley comes into focus to the west, as do the Flattops, many miles to the south. From a high perch amongst ragged boulders we spy a herd of elk some 40 strong, traveling the same ridge we had just gained an hour or so before. Glancing away for an instant, we look again for the herd, but they have suddenly disappeared.

Moments later, from the summit of our objective – a widely-known peak – we find the 1,200-foot descent into the basin below. Snow-laden and aesthetic, it tantalizes us, and, basking under a nearly vernal sun, we drop in.

At first steep enough for jump turns, we soon draw long arcs on the mellowing, corn-snow slope as we descend. At the terminus of our descent my partner and I celebrate before losing our way a bit, eventually finding the basin’s exit via an exciting, if short, snow climb that takes us to a perfect vantage for ogling our turns – ephemeral evidence of a morning well spent on a pretty little peak; etchings on snow that may greet the next intrepid souls who come by. All on a mountain that – at least on these pages – will remain unnamed, and, like many of the spoils in the Zirkels, are left to be discovered by those who endeavor upon them.